American Lullaby

DAVID WINTON BELL GALLERY, BROWN UNIVERSITY FROM BABY BLANKETS and baby bottles to souped-up tricycles and baseballs, the work included in Dave Cole: American Lullaby summons images of an idyllic American childhood — at first glance. Fiberglass Teddy Bear (2003 – 2014), an enormous stuffed pink bear visible through the windows of List Art Building, appears like a charmingly silly commemoration of youthful innocence. What, after all, is more emblematic of uncorrupted childhood than a teddy bear? Likewise, Porcelain Baby Blanket (2002), a white swaddling cloth encased in a glass vitrine, sits like a perfectly preserved relic. However, close inspection of either of these objects quickly reveals how monstrous they actually are. Both are knit from materials laden with tiny shards of glass, making them abhorrent to the touch and dangerous to the lungs: the bear from Owens Corning Fiberglas (typically used for home insulation) and the blanket from Fiberfrax (an industrial porcelain developed to replace asbestos). Throughout his practice, Dave Cole Porcelain Baby Blanket (detail) 2002 juxtaposes such hazardous materials with the nostalgia of childhood Three Generations 2013 COVER to elucidate tensions between the ideal and the real. Untitled (Baseball Study #6) 2008 After graduating from Brown University in 2000, Cole began his career as a practicing artist in a world almost immediately turned upside down by the tragedy of September 11th and the ensuing War on Terror. of nationalism by questioning “the sentimental unity” of such popular In the wake of these events, “the emblems of American patriotism” patriotism through his sculptural practice.2 In his many children’s toys abounded in the United States, from flags and bumper stickers to public and accouterments he explores the ways in which such a false sense of recitals of the Pledge of Allegiance.1 Cole responded to this rising tide Cole's work seems community is cultivated while offering a dystopic vision of the future, to ask us to rethink in which children wear clothing made out of Kevlar and play with rattles in the shape of hand grenades. In his essay “A Citizen’s Response to the patriotism in relation National Security Strategy of the United States,” cultural critic Wendell to human lives. Berry warns against allowing patriotism to “degenerate into unquestion- ing deference to the objects of its affection… .”3 Cole repeatedly returns to the signs and symbols of American military and economic power — JAN GARDEN CASTOR from guns and flags to icons of industrialism — using various loaded materials to critically reconstruct their meanings. His work is at once aggressive, incisive, and nostalgic. Drawing on the adage that it takes a village to raise a child, his suggest we are all complicit in the construction of the symbolic meaning of our national icons. Cole is perhaps best known for his series of American flags which he has knit together using John Deere excavators and light-poles as part of a sensational performance at MASS MoCA; sewn together from the

Porcelain Baby Blanket 2002 flags of other countries; compiled from used bullet casings; and melted placing his baseball study on a wooden pedestal and casting his bottles together from toy soldiers. Like before him, Cole has in metal to give them the veneer of value. Mounted on the wall, the baby used the flag for its inherent indexicality — an image of a flag is neces- bottles are transformed, like bronzed baby shoes, into icons of a fugitive sarily also a flag itself — and for its ubiquity. However, where Johns RIGHT American Flag (Toy Soldiers) 2002 moment. By contrast, as Francine Koslow Miller notes, Fiberglass Teddy was interested in the nature of painting and the viability of representa- “responds in scale, subject and absurd humor to Claes Oldenburg’s tion after , Cole is concerned with how his Proposal for a Colossal Monument for North, New York City material choices alter what the stars and stripes are able to communi- BELOW The Knitting Machine 2005 Teddy Bear, 1965.” 5 Oldenburg proposed a series of similar monuments, cate, from industrial grandeur to neo-colonial ambition. In American Flag Acrylic felt with excavators and aluminum utility poles each of which imagined a significant spatial intervention that, while (Toy Soldiers) (2002), small green arms and legs protrude through Flag approximately 30' x 20' x 1' humorous, also offered pointed social criticism. Produced as dangerous the surface, reminding viewers not only of the organized violence three-dimensional objects, Cole’s sculptures boldly realize the socially underpinning the flag’s status, but also of the ways in which this violence disruptive potential only implied in Oldenburg’s hypothetical project. is normalized from our earliest days playing children’s war games. Cole persistently returns to themes of nostalgia through both his As Jan Garden Castro has noted, “Cole’s work seems to ask us to use of childhood imagery and his carefully researched embrace of rethink patriotism in relation to human lives.”4 Sculptures such as American material culture. In his monumental The Music Box Untitled (Baseball Study #6) (2008) and Baby Bottle (After Discovery (2012 – 2014), he repurposes a vintage 1980s CAT CS-553 compact by the Artist of Military Specification MIL-B-16755B: Bottle, Nursing) vibrator into a functioning musical instrument that plays the first (2008) make this point unambiguously, declaring the very physical Kevlar Romper (3-piece Suit) 2008 stanza of the national anthem. As critic Steve Litt observed, “the work connection between the human body and military strength. Baseball communicates everything from the notion of steamrolling political Study #6 juxtaposes a standard issue baseball — the icon of America’s opponents with aggressive patriotism to the idea that prosaic machines The Music Box 2012 – 2014 pastime — with the US-made M67 fragmentation grenade designed to similar specifications. The baseball grenade, as the M67 is known, was developed to make it easier for the average American to throw. The grenade’s proximity to the baseball casts a sinister shadow over can be repurposed for poetic uses.”6 The machine itself recalls 1 Ian and Margaret Deweese-Boyd, “‘Flying the Flag the physiology of the sport. Similarly, Cole’s baby bottles are each named of Rough Branch’: Rethinking Post-September 11 the bygone glory days of American industrialism and the era for the American military supply identification number assigned to such Patriotism through the Writings of Wendell Berry,” in which we, as a country, invested in large-scale public works Appalachian Journal 32, no. 2 (Winter 2005): bottles during the Vietnam War. Thus, on the one hand, the bottles nod 214 – 215. projects, from the Hoover Dam to the Interstate and Defense to the complex legacy of military social planning, including events such 2 Ibid. Highway System. In this light, the dull ringing of the Star-Spangled as Operation Babylift, in which the US Army evacuated orphaned children 3 Wendell Berry “A Citizen’s Response to the National Banner plays out like a lullaby, putting this American past to rest. Security Strategy of the United States,” Irish Pages, from South Vietnam to the States. On the other hand, the bottles Recently, NPR’s Tom Ashbrook, invited the historian Joseph vol. 1, no. 2 (Autumn – Winter, 2002/2003):, 24. are cast from Babbit metal, a lead-based alloy, and their toxic material Also quoted in Deweese-Boyd, 216. Nye and New Yorker columnist John Cassidy onto his show, implies the dangers of being spoon-fed official narratives. 4 Jan Garden Castro, “Dave Cole” Sculpture Magazine On Point, to discuss the notion of American exceptionalism in the 32, no. 4 (May, 2013): 76. Cole’s use of common objects formally evokes the legacy of pop Baby Bottle (After Discovery by the Artist 21st Century. Both argued that while the United States is still 5 Francine Koslow Miller, “Dave Cole: Judi Rotenberg of Military Specifi cationMIL-B-16755B : art, particularly early vernacular experiments by Johns and Claes Gallery,” Artforum International 47, no. 3 (November Bottle, Nursing) 2008 the world’s leading global power, its divisive political landscape Oldenburg, while conceptually expanding upon the genre’s critical potential. 2008): 356. threatens to undermine its international credibility. In this late 6 Steve Litt, “Dave Cole’s ‘Music Box’ installation Both Baseball Study #6 and the baby bottles take up Johns’ interest RIGHT at Institute of Art turns a compactor Fiberglass Teddy Bear 2003 – 2014 era of American hegemony, Cole’s sculptural objects are prescient in elevating the quotidian value of common objects. In the late fifties into a musical instrument” Cleveland.com March Installation view from the DeCordova and relevant reminders of the importance of critical public and early sixties, Johns covered generic flashlights and light bulbs in Sculpture Park and Museum 25, 2012. http://www.cleveland.com/arts/index. discourse to a functioning democracy. ssf/2012/03/dave_coles_music_box_installat.html. sculpt-metal and placed them on small pedestals, thereby staging these objects within the signifiers of “art.” Cole harnesses these techniques, ALEXIS LOWRY MURRAY Works in the Exhibition

All artworks collection of the artist unless otherwise listed

The Music Box 2012 – 2014 The Music Box Credits Mixed media (Caterpillar CS-553 vibratory Shawn Gilheeney roller-compacter, cherry wood, spring steel, Project Manager electric motor, leather drive belt) Tim Ferland 11' 6" x 8' 3" x 19' 6" Fabricator / Millwright Functional music box plays “The Star Spangled Curtis Aric Banner” (by Francis Scott Key, arraignment for Fabricator / Mechanic steamroller by Manya Rubenstein) Rain Gilbert Fiberglass Teddy Bear 2003 – 2014 Fabricator / Expediter Mixed media (194 rolls of fiberglass Christian Correra insulation, hand knit) Fabricator / Painter 16' x 16' x 14' Nate Nadeau CAD Programmer / Painter / Patinator Lead Teddy Bear 2010 Mark Dufault Lead ribbon, hand knit over lead wool armature Machinist 5 ½" x 5" x 4 ¼" Michael Everett Collection of Lucy and Joe Chung Music Box Technician and Engineer

Untitled (Santa Fe Bear Study #5) 2004 Robert Houllahan Documenting Filmmaker Lead Teddy 2010 Mixed media 33" x 29" x 14" Scott Lizotte Machinist Kevlar Teddy Bear 2006 Dan Chaput Used police body armor, dismantled, Machinist DAVE COLE is a Brown University hand knit, and stuffed with shredded lead Manya K. Rubinstein alumnus known for his use of 4 ½" x 5" x 5" Musical Arranger Greg Pennisten scavenged and recycled materials in Three Generations 2013 Hand turned hardwood and sterling silver Painter / Patinator large-scale sculpture. Cole’s work 2 ¾" x 11 ¼" x 17 ½" Tessa Freas Model Maker has been exhibited at regional and Untitled (Baseball Study #6) 2008 William Cornwall Mixed media with M67 fragmentation grenade Typographer / Expediter international museums, including 8" x 10" x 5" Tom West Draftsman / Printer MASS MoCA (which presented The Kevlar Romper (3-piece Suit) 2008 Used Gulf War body armor, dismantled Joel Taplin Consulting Woodwright Knitting Machine in 2005); deCordova and re-sewn 28 ¾" x 13 ¼" x 9 " Clark Sopper Sculpture Park and Museum; Museum Consulting Machinist of Arts and Design; Nasjonal Museet, Kevlar Snowsuit 2008 Luke Boggia Used Gulf War body armor, dismantled Consulting Musical Arranger Oslo; Haifa Museum of Art; and the and re-sewn Ashleigh Carraway 21" x 19" x 6" Consulting Musical Arranger Textielmuseum, Netherlands. His work Porcelain Baby Blanket 2002 Paulo Carvalho Mechanical Music Consultant is included in the collections of the Fiberfrax refractory ceramic fiber, hand knit 40 " x 29 " with case and pedestal Brian Dowling RISD Museum, Smithsonian American Site Manager Baby Bottles (After Discovery by the Artist Art Museum, 21c Museum, and the of Military SpecificationMIL-B-16755B : Special Thanks to Pizzuti Collection. Cole lives and works Bottle, Nursing) 2008 Ken Taylor and Ohio Cat Cast babbit metal Bruce Checefsky and The Cleveland 5 ½" x 2 ¼" x 3" each in Hudson, NY. Institute of Art Collection of the artist and Lucy and Joe Chung Kristen Dodge and Dodge Gallery American Flag (Toy Soldiers) 2002 The Steel Yard Acrylic on panel with mixed media (toy soldiers) Craig Pickell and Bullard Abrasives 22" x 41" x 4 ½" The Musical Wonderhouse Published on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name Machine Gun Nest 2008 May 9 – July 5, 2015 Precision Laser Mixed media with decommissioned Copyright © David Winton Bell Gallery, Brown University Rhode Island Welding Designed by Malcolm Grear Designers M60 machine gun 27" x 102" x 27" Hall’s Garage Industrial Welders Supply